By Mike Drooger –

Being a basketball official can be a thankless job, one that brings with it certain criticism. “C’mon, ref, you’re missing a great game!”  “Call ‘em both ways!”  “We’d better get that same call on our end!” Basketball referees knowingly put themselves in possible hostile situations when they enter the gym, but what would the game of basketball be without them?

If you’ve attended girls’ or boys’ high school basketball games in southwest Minnesota, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve seen Tom Mesner tuning out the negative and calling what he sees, something he’s done for 35 years.

Mesner’s first taste of high school officiating actually involved volleyball but, being a farmer, he informed, “It was really the wrong time of the year.  I had enough to do at home.” His initial basketball officiating experience came when he was a teenager.  “I was a junior in high school when I began officiating Independent Basketball. My dad coached the Chandler Indees team.  That’s how I got started,” Mesner explained. Independent Basketball, played by men after graduating high school, was popular in Mesner’s neck of the woods until it fizzled out in the late 1980s. “There were games every Wednesday and Saturday night.  It’s where I learned to deal with people that didn’t agree with what I had called,” Mesner joked.

It took Mesner a while to get officiating contracts for high school basketball. “I wasn’t a teacher or a coach so getting games early wasn’t easy. It took a while to get contracts.” But eventually, the officiating dates started coming. Mesner estimated he’s worked up to 600 games in his career with at least 30 different partners.

Mesner said he really doesn’t hear the fans during the game. “If I’m concentrating on the game the way I should, I don’t hear them. I sometimes hear the coaches, but that generally doesn’t bother me. I’ve never had an instance where I’ve wanted to retire from officiating. If I’ve had a game that didn’t go quite right, I just move forward and realize tomorrow is a new day.”

Mesner has heard numerous coaches over the years, many of which were willing to contribute to this story, including Gregg Slaathaug, successful former head coach of Fulda Raiders girls’ basketball. When asked about Tom Mesner, the basketball official, Slaathaug said, “Tom has always been a gentleman and advocate for our kids in southwest Minnesota—taking time to give back three to four nights a week so our kids can enjoy the thrill of competition. Tom has a calming effect on coaches who could, at times, get a little emotional. Thank you, Tom, for all your hard work over the years!”